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Tuesday, April 5, 2016

The finance ministry has instructed the revenue board to form a panel
comprising intelligence officials of its income tax, value-added tax (VAT) and
customs wings to face mutual evaluation by the Asia-Pacific Group (APG) of the
progress on combating money laundering.

There will be a primary contact point on the three-member committee that will
furnish requisite information to the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit
(BFIU) and coordinate things in relation to the APG mutual evaluation, says the
directive.

Also, the committee will organise face-to-face meetings during the onsite visit
by the APG team.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith recently sent a demy official (DO) letter to the
National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman, also secretary of the Internal
Resources Division (IRD), with guidelines for the mutual-evaluation activities.

An APG assessment team comprising some seven to eight members from New Zealand,
China, India, Indonesia and Brunei Dares Salam is scheduled to visit Bangladesh
on October 11-23 as part of the mutual evaluation of actions against the
monetary underworld.

During the fortnight-long stay, the team will verify authenticity of the
furnished data in technical compliance response and effectiveness response.
They also evaluate mutual cooperation, capacities, and working method of
different ministries and departments.

The third round of mutual-evaluation process of APG is underway in Bangladesh.
Bank and financial institution unit under the Ministry of Finance and BFIU of
the central bank are coordinating the evaluation process.

The finance minister has found the necessity of including more information on
assessment of effectiveness of response to check money laundering and terrorist
financing, according to the DO letter.

He instructed the NBR with the guidelines to prepare the tax authority for the
mutual-evaluation process run by the APG.

The minister has directed the NBR to assign the committee to seek necessary
information on urgent basis from the counterpart in foreign countries to
resolve the cases relating to the smuggling in drugs and gold, local and
foreign currencies and trade-related money laundering.

The tax authority will exchange data and ensure access to the database with the
BFIU on investigation into alleged acts of money laundering, smuggling and
terror financing.

"Every customs station must have effective monitoring mechanism and
trained officials to check terrorism, terror financing, and entry of illegal
arms for implementation of the resolution of the United Nations (UN) Security
Council," the letter reads.

The NBR and its relevant wings have to frame their respective strategies for
thwarting money laundering and terrorist-financing offences in line with the
national strategy papers for 2015-17, it added.

For mutual evaluation, two reports on technical compliance response and
effectiveness response on implementation result of relevant law, rules and methods
were submitted by Bangladesh to the APG on April 12 and June 24, 2015
respectively.